Continent colonic urinary reservoir (Florida pouch): long-term surgical complications (greater than 11 years).

PURPOSE: We analyzed the long-term results (greater than 10 years) of a continent cutaneous colonic urinary reservoir (Florida pouch), focusing primarily on the incidence of significant complications.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between January 1986 and October 1991, 179 patients underwent continent cutaneous colonic urinary reservoir construction. Of these patients 105 died of primary disease or were lost to followup, leaving 38 males and 36 females with a mean followup of 133 months with adequate data for analysis who are the subject of this report. The surgical technique has been previously reported. Briefly, a detubularized right colonic segment forms the reservoir, a tapered external limb reinforced at the ileocecal valve level allows continent catheterization and the ureters are directly anastomosed to the pouch. The diseases that prompted urinary diversion included bladder cancer in 28 cases, conversion from another diversion in 12, neurogenic bladder in 11, interstitial cystitis in 10, crippling incontinence in 4, radiation cystitis in 6, hemorrhagic cystitis in 1, exstrophy in 1 and colon cancer in 1. A total of 146 direct ureterocolonic reimplantations were performed.

RESULTS: Complications were grouped by etiology and the number of patients, including abdominal wall (peristomal hernia in 3 patients or 4%), external limb (incontinence in 5 or 6.7%, stomal stenosis in 3 or 4% and difficult catheterization in 1 or 1.4%), reservoir stones (4 or 5.4%), ureteral obstruction (primary reimplantation in 7 of 108 or 6.3%, repeat reimplantation in 4 of 24 or 16.4% and radiated ureters in 4 of 14 or 28.4%) and metabolic (persistent diarrhea in 2 or 2.7%, renal failure in 2 or 2.7% and low vitamin B12 in 3 or 4%). Severe acidosis developed in 4 individuals (5.5%). Of the 12 patients who underwent conversion from another type of diversion 7 (58%) experienced metabolic alterations.

CONCLUSIONS: In the long term continent colonic reservoirs have an acceptable complication rate. The most common problem is ureteral obstruction, especially in patients who have previously undergone irradiation (28.4% versus 6.3%, Fisher's test p = 0.02). Patients in whom longer bowel segments were resected, such as those with conversion from another type of diversions, experienced a greater number of complications, especially ureteral obstruction associated with repeat reimplantation (16.4% versus 6.3%, Fisher's test p = 0.23) and metabolic derangements (58% versus 6.4%, Fisher's test p = 0.0001).